AGs Want Pruitt to Change EPA and 2018 Election Taking Shape

**Federal agencies that regulate biotechnology may NOT have the staffing and expertise to handle the plethora of new products expected over the next five to 10 years.

According to a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the EPA, FDA, USDA will need to be prepared for this potential increase, including finding effective means of evaluation that maintains public safety, protects the environment, and satisfies the statutory requirements.

**A group of state Attorneys General want new EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to change the course of EPA regulation.

Missouri AG Josh Hawley joined Indiana, Nebraska and 16 others in asking Pruitt to make sure the EPA follows the law.

Hawley describes the EPA over the past decade as engaging in ‘mission creep’, which he says must be reversed by the new administration so we can get it back to its proper role of enforcing existing statutes and to work with states cooperatively to make sure folks like farmers and ranchers are able to do their jobs.

**The handicapping is already under way for the 2018 elections, and the three most vulnerable seats in the Senate are held by farm-state Democrats: Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, and Claire McCaskill of Missouri.

Donnelly and Heitkamp serve on the Senate Ag Committee, creating the possibility of election-year politics playing into development of the new farm bill.